


silence is the perfect sound.

by m_rosenkov



Category: Gintama
Genre: Canon Compliant, Developing Relationship, F/M, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:27:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24768487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_rosenkov/pseuds/m_rosenkov
Summary: There are memories Hijikata would give anything to forget. The very same ones he would do anything to remember.on grief, Mitsuba and—Gintoki.
Relationships: Hijikata Toshirou & Sakata Gintoki, Hijikata Toshirou/Okita Mitsuba, Hijikata Toshirou/Sakata Gintoki
Comments: 12
Kudos: 94





	silence is the perfect sound.

Morning has finally come, and the samurai is still there.

Edo does not see dawn as other places do. With a night of rain, the city is covered in a steamy haze, humidity this thick, living thing in the air. Towering skyscrapers disappear into clouds above, lined with golden sunlight that blurs in the atmosphere. Cars start to light the streets below, and a passenger ship takes to the fading stars.

A morning, like every other. Almost.

Eventually, slowly, Hijikata moves. Some pathetic attempt at normalcy: reaching into his breast pocket to retrieve a cigarette. And though he moves slow, frozen to the bone, joints cracking from a night of disuse—and though he is soaked, through to his skin, shivering so hard his hand shakes—he still manages to pull it out, to hold it between his thumb and forefinger, where it sags, sadly, weightless.

He takes out his lighter and flicks it once—twice—six times—without so much as a spark.

His fingers ache, stiffened, as though they still grip his sword. Every breath he takes sends shooting pain through his whole body, and he remembers, so clearly, the hilt of a katana ramming into the side of his ribs. He remembers losing consciousness for just a moment, then coming back to, the cold press of a gun on the back of his neck, someone hissing in his ear:

“You can’t run, Demon.”

But he was never going to run. Not from them.

A minute passes with no luck at lighting the smoke, and with a huff, Hijikata throws it over the ledge, into the ocean below. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets, waits a moment, breathing, before he steps back into the sun.

His leg screams in protest. He managed to stem the blood flow with the ripped shirt of one of Joui extremists, but he can still feel the wound pulsing, throbbing, the intense ache coming and going with waves of nausea. He bites the inside of his cheek to stop from crying out, pausing for a painful beat, before shuffling slowly around the corner.

Gintoki stands with an exhausted groan, and the widest, jaw-cracking yawn Hijikata has ever seen. Then: “Ahhhh, I thought that night would never end.”

Hijikata scoffs, more to hide the grinding of his teeth than anything else. Habitually, he pats his chest pocket for distraction, before remembering his smokes are soaked, hands falling in frustration and balling at his side.

“You don’t have to be here,” he grits out.

“Eh?” Gintoki’s flat eyes focus on him for a beat of a second, unreadable. Then, he reaches into his kimono, pulling out a small pack of cigarettes and lobbing them at him. Hijikata catches it with one hand, blinking. “Got these while I was at the store earlier. Wait here, addict.”

He holds them in his hand, stunned into silence, watching Gintoki walk away. Then mutters, “Thanks,” to no one, while tapping out a cigarette and placing it between his lips.

It takes his lighter a few goes to spark, and he watches it, willing with his whole soul for even the briefest light. Finally it burns, and he sees in the flash, clearly, his hands caked in dried blood, under his nails, the groove of his knuckles—the iron smell of it as he takes the smoke from his lips, breathing out slow.

It’s not that Hijikata hasn’t killed people before. The world is black and white, you see, and he follows a code—the samurai code, _his_ code—and there are bad people and good people, and sometimes bad people die. Sometimes they don’t. And these men—the men whose blood stains his uniform, knots in his hair, whose taste still sits on the tip of his tongue, despite the tobacco—they were bad. He knows.

They _were_ bad, he _knows._

And yet, that isn’t why their blood is on his hands. That isn’t why he killed as many as his sword could reach, before he would die with it gripped in his fist.

Selfish reasons don’t fit the code he has created, and it is all too startlingly clear on this early morning how little right he has actually done.

A minute passes before the puttering sound of a beaten old scooter thrums down the street. Hijikata leans back on a building, watching the silhouette near.

Gintoki pulls up close, stretching his neck, left, right, dead eyes staring at Hijikata underneath the brim of his dollar store helmet. “I only have one”—he taps the offending object on his head, grinning—“but if the police pull me over, I’m sure they won’t arrest you, eh, tax thief?”

Hijikata doesn’t move an inch, blinking at him, and Gintoki just looks back, mouth back to its normal flat line. Silence passes between them for a still beat.

He’s often wondered about this—the silver samurai’s motivation. And it’s not in the same way he wonders about other things, like if he truly believes they should bow to the Amanto, or how the Earth looks from above. There is nothing but familiar, inkling curiosity, the need to want something from Gintoki. It burns in his chest. Makes him want to draw his sword, to feel something he hasn’t felt before, something that he cannot quite identify.

It’s frustrating to say the least. Angers him every time they meet.

Gintoki does not break Hijikata’s gaze. “Get on.”

Hijikata throws down his half-burnt cigarette, scraping his shoe across it with his good leg. He gets on the scooter without a word of protest.

The tiny motor kicks to life instantly, and they head towards the sun. Hijikata keeps his hands at his sides, nails digging into the leather of the seat as he watches the industrial district pass by. There is no sign of the rest of the Shinsengumi—only brief flashes of blue kimonos, Edo’s general police now on the scene. He can imagine where his comrades have gone, and the thought makes his stomach sink, throat constricting painfully tight.

He’s very sorry, he thinks. He’s very sorry for everything.

They turn onto the main city highway, traffic not at its peak. Gintoki angles his head to the right, and asks, “Hospital or station?”

The bullet must still be in his leg, surely, but the thought of her, in that cheap hospital bed, cold, alone. And not for the first time since last night, he reimagines the night differently, where he kills Kuraba Touma again, and again, and again. Hijikata’s katana sliding through his ribs, watching as the businessman’s eyes turn to glass.

Feeling the last breath of him leave, slow, drawn out into emptiness.

Hijikata snaps from his fantasy as the scooter jerks suddenly beneath him. He blinks, coming to his senses, noticing almost too late the sign passing by overhead. Heart in throat, he reaches out for Gintoki’s hand on the bars, yanking the scooter forcefully to the left and into oncoming traffic.

“Oi, oi, oi!”

Gintoki shakes him off, and they swerve violently, out of the turning lane and back onto the highway, narrowly missing a car. He yells, trying to right the scooter’s course, and Hijikata grips the seat underneath him, letting out a sigh of relief at their change of direction.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, moron?!”

“Not the hospital,” is all Hijikata says.

Seconds feel like minutes until Gintoki finally regains control of the scooter, angry car horns dying down. They continue down the highway on their original course.

“Listen, I don’t know how you public servant gorillas communicate at your zoo, but us humans like to use _words_ when we want something.” Gintoki speaks slowly, deliberate, and Hijikata feels that thing in his chest again, holding back the temptation to throw the idiot off in the lane of an oncoming semi-trailer. “You should try it some time, it works wonders.”

Hijikata reaches into his breast pocket, pulling out his lighter and smoke. “Yeah. I said not the hospital.” He ignites the stick, shielding the flame with Gintoki’s back, then returns the lighter to his pocket, breathing out a long plume of smoke towards the sky. “Open your shitty ears.”

He waves his hand vaguely in the air, as though brushing away Hijikata’s statement. “What about your leg?”

“There’s a medic at the station.”

Gintoki’s head turns a fraction, eyes flicking to him. Hijikata couldn’t possibly assume what his expression meant, but, at a guess—well. He’s never been a particularly good liar. Apparently even a good-for-nothing layabout can tell that much.

“Huh, well…”

Gintoki faces forward, and a second later, without warning, swerves right again, down the exit lane heading towards the city’s east.

Hijikata’s cigarette almost falls out of his mouth at the sudden turn, and he grips the seat, biting down hard on the butt. The scooter speeds around the corner, coming to a set of lights just as they change to red. Gintoki abruptly slams on the breaks, Hijikata’s nose slamming into Gintoki’s back.

His cigarette crumples to nothing. “Oi! What the hell is wrong with you?!”

“Hm?” Gintoki’s expression looks more lifeless than usual when he turns to him, and he blinks, yawns, and rubs at his eyes. “We’re fixing your leg.”

“I said—”

“Yeah.” The lights turn green and Gintoki steps on the accelerator, facing back to the front. “You can decide what you want to do when we get there.”

*

Hijikata wakes.

He has no idea where he is. His last memory is with Gintoki, on the scooter, moving his leg slightly and—

Black.

“ _Shit_.”

He blinks up at the boarded roof of an open room, cool evening wind blowing through the doors. Sunlight halos the trees across the visible yard, quickly disappearing for the night. There’s no one and nothing in sight, except for a lone glass of water and seaweed crackers, placed neatly on a white porcelain plate at his bedside.

He can’t see his sword.

Hijikata tries to get up, but—a hiss escapes between his dry lips. He can’t move his arms. Every muscle protests in pain. It feels like his whole body is alight, battered and bruised, skin burning hot. The blanket on top of him weighs a ton, and all he can do is lay, trying to stop the room from spinning, regain some semblance of control.

All adrenaline gone, he is—

He is broken.

The room slowly steadies. He watches the sun fade to black, night taking the city with the low drone of cicadas. Droplets of rain darken the deck. Time passes painfully slow—quite literally, his mind refusing to sleep due to the pain; still racing, however, with thoughts of the night before. Things that could have been different. Things that were.

Memories he would give anything to forget. The same ones he would do anything to remember. The heavy weight of burden on his shoulders.

The rain picks up in vivacity, and a dull light flickers on outside, casting the yard in a dim, yellow glow. A shadow stands at the door, one he recognises immediately, and stupidly Hijikata tries to move to greet him, to show him that he’s fine and ready for anything.

Pain shoots up his leg, igniting every nerve up his spine, and he grunts loudly, falling back onto the futon. He bites his tongue hard enough to taste blood.

“Oi, Toushi!” Kondou rushes over, falling to his knees at the bedside, the bag he was carrying clattering to the floor. His hands hover in the air, and he looks Hijikata up and down, eyes wide.

“I’m— _fine,_ ” Hijikata grinds out, heaving a breath and trying to relax. The pain starts to subside, but his leg throbs threateningly, and the very sudden, very real thought crosses his mind, wondering if he’ll ever be able to use his leg the same again. “What are you—where—?”

Surprisingly satisfied with Hijikata’s answer, Kondou rustles through the bag at his side, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He takes a smoke from the box, placing it on Hijikata’s lips and lighting it for him, the brief illumination casting his face in deep shadow. He looks beyond exhausted.

“Yorozuya told me he took you here. Otae-san helped patch your leg.”

“Otae—?” He manages to lift an arm up, pinching the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, breathing out slowly. Smoke fills the space between them. “How long have I been out for?”

“A day.” Kondou pauses for a moment, looking away, then stands. “Listen, Toushi, I have to go back to the station. The Shinsengumi need me, with you and—”

He clears his throat, not elaborating, and Hijikata shoves the cigarette back into his mouth, pushing it to the corner of his lips. “Hm.”

“The funeral is on Friday.”

Hijikata shifts his head, looking past Kondou, out to the rain pouring across the yard. “And?”

“And you’re going, Toushi.” Kondou turns around, starts his leave—pausing briefly at the doorway. “Take the week off. And come back to us all better. I won’t feel bad punching you then.”

Hijikata opens his mouth, but Kondou cuts him off with a short wave of his hand. “Don’t ever do that again, Toushi. Don’t ever go behind my back again.” He turns, holding Hijikata’s gaze for a long moment. He says, voice low, “I’m not saying this as your captain, Toushi, but as your friend.”

Then, he’s gone, the porch light flicking off, plunging the room in total dark save for the dull light of his smoke. In the distance, Hijikata can hear Kondou yell for Otae—followed by the thump of someone hitting the ground.

He thinks, _Idiot._ He thinks, _Fool._ And then, Hijikata thinks nothing at all, cigarette burning down to ash, dreams of a dojo beyond the city, surrounded by trees and flowers, and clear, blue skies stretching beyond towering mountains.

Her at his side.

A life he will never know. 

*

He loses two whole days. He does not touch his sword. He does not eat.

Edo continues without him, as always.

*

Thursday is one of the warmer nights of the week. Sticky and humid from a day of rain, people take advantage of the clear night sky crowding the streets with music and drink.

He finds himself there, somehow. The crutches are sweaty in his grip, cigarette burning to nothing in his mouth.

The doors of the snack bar are wide open, inviting people in, drinks freely pouring from the bar. It’s crowded, but easy to spot the Yorozuya among the patrons, slumped over the front counter, drink in hand. By his side is China Girl, yelling incoherently in his ear—and it is she who spots Hijikata first, eyes flashing mischievously as they look past Gintoki.

“Oi, no cops allowed!”

Gintoki’s head rolls in his direction, back stiffening as they make eye contact. Hijikata drops his smoke to the ground, running his boot along it before hobbling into the bar. He tries to ignore the twenty pairs of eyes on him—old men in booths, shadowed in the corner, the barmaids, watching him with wary, suspicious eyes. He feels a fool, weak, the crutch a glaring fault for all to see, and Gintoki just watches him approach, doesn’t say a word, doesn’t show a _thing._

Hijikata stops next to him, and the old lady behind the bar—Otose—blows a plume of smoke towards him. Then she snaps, loudly, “All of you, quit ya staring, or you’ll be out on the streets.”

Just like that, the bar bursts back into life. Conversations fill the space, laughter, the sound of clinking ceramic, the scraping of barstools. Otose taps her cigarette over a metal tray on the countertop, ash falling into the base.

“What do you drink?”

Hijikata shakes his head, keenly aware that the only two people in the bar who did not listen to Otose are hanging on his every movement. In his periphery, he sees Kagura grinning.

“I’m just here to pay for a job.” He reaches into his pocket, pulling out a fistful of yen in a small brown envelope, throwing it on the counter space in front of Gintoki. “Here.”

Otose makes some kind of noise, but she is drowned out by Kagura, who jumps up on her stool, leaning over Gintoki with both hands on his shoulders for balance.

“Gin-chan! You didn’t say Mayo gave us a job!”

Gintoki, very forcefully, puts his palm on Kagura’s face, pushing her back onto her chair. It wobbles dangerously beneath her, but he barely pays her any mind, grabbing the alcohol in front of him and drowning the rest of the liquid in one go. Then:

“No.”

And slams the glass on the counter in front of him.

Hijikata feels his heart stop, anger flaring fast and hot. Kagura steadies herself, eyes widening. Her mouth opens slightly, but she snaps it shut, looking to her lap, almost thoughtful. Behind the bar, Otose grabs a half-full bottle of sake, and refills Gintoki’s glass.

“What—” Hijikata's hand slips on his walking stick, sweating in his grip. He grinds out, teeth clenched, “What do you mean, _no_?”

Gintoki takes his now full glass, barely paying mind to the wad of cash still on the counter. He takes a drink. “I don’t remember you hiring me,” he says, speaking to the bottom of his cup.

Hijikata’s brain stalls for a beat. Then, “It’s for Sougo.”

Gintoki snorts, shaking his head. “I don’t accept payment for others who aren’t here.”

“What if they’re dead?”

There is a silence that follows. A strange one—though the room is still loud with laughter and nonsensical conversations, between them, in this corner of the bar, it’s heavy, quiet. Kagura is looking at him now, over Yorozuya’s head, and though Otose is busy cleaning the countertop, Hijikata sees her pause, this beat of melancholy.

“Yeah,” Gintoki says, suddenly, shattering the space. He takes another sip, voice thick. “I don’t accept payment from the dead, either, tax thief.”

Hijikata wants to punch him. He wants to wring his hands around his neck and shake some sense into him, make him understand, this lazy piece of shit, this _idiot._ Hijikata was trying to do some good, trying to be a normal person, but just like always Gintoki is a fool determined to be anything but normal.

Through gritted teeth, Hijikata manages, “Then, can I buy what you’re drinking?”

Otose, who had been doing a terrible job at pretending she wasn’t listening, snorts. Her eyes are sad, and she says, “You know he’s had a whole bottle already, right?” She brings out an empty glass and new bottle regardless, uncorking the lid and placing it on the bar between them.

Hijikata slides the money towards the old woman, but she doesn’t touch it, moving away with a cloud of smoke.

“Well—” Gintoki drains the last of his drink, not pausing to breathe as he fills both glasses in front of him. He slides one over to Hijikata, and though he doesn’t take it, Gintoki still _clinks_ them together. “For the dead, then.”

_Ah._

Despite his better judgement, Hijikata drinks.

*

Two in the morning. The grass is dew damp beneath him, cold despite the heat of the night. On his right, his sword presses into his side, and his left—

Gintoki raises his hands up, shaping his fingers like a diamond. He centres on a particularly bright star in the space, and snaps, “Oi. Stop smoking, addict. I can’t see.”

Hijikata scoffs, breathing out another plume of smoke upward. “Eh? Why the hell do you care about the sky?”

He doesn’t answer, and Hijikata, without thought, stubbs the half-burnt cigarette into the ground next to him. Maybe it’s the alcohol clouding his mind, or the exhaustion, the night slipping fast away from them. How he even got here, he has no idea—one hour they were downing a whole bottle of sake in the snack bar, China Girl singing some awful pop song into a hair brush—the next, here, on an empty field by Edo River, the stars shining bright as the city sleeps. Nothing to accompany him but the low, pulsing hum of cicadas—and Gintoki, burning hot at his side, face red from alcohol.

He wants to know why. Hijikata had been thinking about it all night, but he felt to ask would ruin whatever was happening. Gintoki had been there from the beginning—spent time with Mitsuba, Sougo… stayed with Hijikata all night in quiet vigil.

Hijikata can’t wrap his head around the thought that perhaps there is no reason why for any of it. That there will never be any reason for what the samurai does, right down to the way he watches the stars, to how when he drops his arms, his fingers purposefully brush across Hijikata’s own.

The call of cicada’s throbs in Hijikata’s skull, echoing in and out, and he can feel himself start to fall, sinking into the grass below, the sounds of Edo fading fast as he closes his eyes.

And instead of asking why, Hijikata says nothing at all, silence threading them together.

Gintoki sighs.

*

The funeral is a sordid affair. He has nothing to say, and as such, says nothing—instead, spends most of his time outside the temple, lighting smoke after smoke, from the time the coffin is carried inside, right to the end, where it— _she_ —leaves.

Sougo does not betray himself once. Kondou mentions during one break, as midday drags out, that Sougo spent the last few days in isolation, allowing no one to see him (“Not even me, Toushi.”).

Hijikata’s leg is twitching so much at that point, the _tap, tap, tap_ of his heel on the pavement, it’s even driving himself insane.

“Right,” he mutters, like it means anything at all at this point. Hijikata flicks the burnt-out cigarette into the tray at his side, immediately reaching into his coat for another.

Just as he’s halfway through it, Sougo steps out of the temple doors, the sound of his walk so ingrained into Hijikata’s mind, he cannot help but turn and look. Kondou is still talking, oblivious to Sougo’s appearance, and their eyes lock for the briefest moment. An unmistakable flash of anger passes over Sougo’s face, before he settles back into nothing at all, like a statue that has made a mistake.

Hijikata desperately wants to say something. But he’s never been like that, and Sougo— _him and Sougo…_

So silence sits.

Kondou finally notices the division captain, and they re-enter the temple, together, leaving Hijikata alone without a word. The world feels as though it is settling around him, muffled, maddening silence only broken by distant cicadas, and closer: the fish drum inside, echoing in his skull.

He imagines how ridiculous it is for her to be laying there, surrounded by all the men who turned their backs on her. Imagines, with difficulty, a different life he might have led if he never left. No Edo, a life without Kondou, Sougo, or—

Hijikata throws the finished cigarette to his growing pile; lights another.

Breathes smoke out to the clear sky above.

*

Morning finally comes.

The samurai is there.

He walks over to Hijikata, this time, kneeling at his side as the dawn sun pours through the leaves above. He smells like dirt. Dark circles line under his eyes. His lips are cracked and dry. He places a bag of crackers at the foot of Mitsuba’s tombstone, bows his head, and smiles to the dirt.

Hijikata lights a cigarette. “What are you doing here, Yorozuya?”

“I’m paying respects to the dead, Mayora. Didn’t they teach you that at your backwards country school?” Gintoki raises his head, and looks at him. His face is as blank as always, but there is something in his gaze, something Hijikata can’t quite name. “I have one last job to do.”

He rolls the smoke across his lips, tasting the tobacco as it burns to ash. “I thought you didn’t do jobs for the dead.”

“I don’t accept _payment_ from the dead.” He looks back to the stone, stark white against the fresh mound of dirt at its base. “And this job is for me.”

Hijikata pinches the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, breathing the smoke out into the space between them. He does not ask. Does not need to. Some things are left better unsaid, some things better left in silence; like nights spent mourning together on the roof of a skyscraper, or falling asleep, side-by-side, on a riverbank.

And so—

“Yorozuya.”

A grunt.

“Thank you.” The cigarette has burnt to nothing. Hijikata looks up to the cloudless morning sky, breathing out the last of the smoke from his lungs where it catches the wind, whisked away to nothing. “Thank you for this.”

Silence is his answer. The presence at his side does not leave.

And so.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to my friends who encouraged me to write and upload this, (especially [yin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mtskws), for always encouraging me with my writing and giving this a quick read through).  
> and sorry, this hasn't been beta'd or edited! we die like men (also i just needed it out of my drafts heh). i hope you guys liked it, thanks for reading!


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